Scent of a Witch

by Bri Clark

  She was limp in his arms but still breathing. He sat her lower body on his thigh to look at her injury. He knew from the smell that she was bleeding too freely. The air’s attack waged on, causing emotional reactions Fionn didn’t comprehend. Fury raged in him as if this woman was his, but he couldn’t be sure. Possessiveness wasn’t an emotion he had ever experienced—until now. He tore his sleeve and used the material to apply pressure on her wound.

  “You can have the body immortal. All I want is the necklace. It is mine by birthright. I am the oldest Sweeney. And soon I’ll be the only Sweeney.” The man’s words from somewhere across the cemetery confirmed the fact that he was Maeve’s twin. There was so much more going on more than either of them had known. But all Fionn cared about for the moment was getting Maeve to safety…to his home.

  The soft shuffle of footsteps whispered through grass. Their pursuer grew closer. Fionn held his breath, praying Maeve wouldn’t stir and moan. Quiet was imperative. He closed his eyes and willed the sun to come up.

  “Ahhh…the sweet scent of Shamrocks, a signal of her death. She is fetching. Did she capture your heart?” He taunted Fionn as he gained even more ground on their hiding place. “Trust me, you don’t want to have anything to do with this family…the way they treat their blood is truly shameful.”

  Fionn considered his options. He would have to release Maeve to fight. He eased his hold on her lifeless body.

  A finger of light poked at the fabric of night. Dawn was imminent. Time seemed to slow as the ray grew a bit wider, gathered strength. Finally, with an explosion of light, the sun broke over the horizon.

  The acrid scent of diesel mingled with fast food, and whirled together with autumn; a reassuring blend of aroma that told Fionn they had safely returned to her time. However, it wasn’t enough. Maeve needed healing. No regular hospital could provide that for her.

  More important, no one could protect her better than he could with the support of his clan.

  Fionn balanced Maeve in one arm and held the Celtic Knot in the other as he closed his eyes and cast a spell for home. “A Sweeney and a Hughes. Call upon the blood bond. Between the two, to travel out of time but part of space, far away to the safety of the Hughes Place.”

  A familiar bellow erupted and Fionn smiled as he opened his eyes. Some things never changed. His father, Laird Rordan Hughes, was never one for using words to express himself.

  “Call the healers!” he yelled, and ran to his son across the great hall of their ancestral home. Then he saw her and fell to his knees. For the first time in Fionn’s life, he saw emotion in his father’s demeanor: raw, sincere emotion. Not even when his mother had died had the man shed a tear. But now, standing over a woman he didn’t even know, he brushed hair from her brow and the glistening of unshed tears bubbled at the corner of his eyes.

  “This is Cordelia’s progeny?” Rordan asked.

  “Aye, sir.”

  “And only her blood is on you? You are well, son?”

  “Aye, sir.”

  If it wasn’t for the lifetime’s worth of discipline that demanded Fionn reply to his father when spoken to, he would have been shocked to silence. It had been so long since his father referred to him as son, he couldn’t recall the last time. It had only been recently since the banishment from his clan had been lifted.

  Young, arrogant, and proud, Fionn had left to work for the Board of Witchery. Rordan hollered and swore, calling the whole lot an organized form of pompous corruption. Fionn ignored him, even more motivated to go and become a glorified immortal tracker, a vocation that had beckoned to him like the call of a siren. Only it hadn’t been as glorious as he’d thought it would be. When the banishment was lifted and his father had sent for him, Fionn had disobeyed the Board and now he’d been branded an outlaw.

  Neasa Hughes, Fionn’s aunt and the most renowned healer in the world of Witchery, appeared, followed by two young males—both Fionn’s cousins—carrying a litter. Hair the color of golden wheat sat high and tight at her crown in a neat knot, giving her the look of being in her thirties and not somewhere in her fifties as she actually was. A petite woman, still thin after multiple births, she walked with the air of confidence, of knowledge—secret knowledge. Her sons, identical twins, Simon and Sigmour, had changed drastically since Fionn’s last visit. Tall and broad with the appearance of manhood, they still bore the Hughes brand of dark eyes and hair.

  “Quit your bellowing Rordan,” Neasa yelled back, sounding much louder than her diminutive form should allow. “Hello, nephew. Tell aunt Nea what happened,” she continued, cooing as though he was a child again. The embarrassing thing was it actually did comfort him.

  “This is Maeve. She’s been shot, and I can’t stop the bleeding,” he explained as his cousins listened intently over their mother’s shoulder.

  The vast difference between the Hughes and the Sweeneys was that the Hughes were indeed fertile, especially in the male offspring department. There was no fear of their line dying out anytime soon. The cursed part being he had so many cousins he didn’t always know who was who. Most of the cousins were poor fatherless offspring from either banished males or female relatives whose husbands were worthless. Funny thing about the laird…he never turned family away, which was why his keep was exploding with youth. More importantly, no man would live after striking a Hughes woman or child. That also contributed to the amount of fatherless children.

  Neasa urged him to lean Maeve forward so she could look at the wound. She cursed the invention of gunpowder, then whispered soothing words to her patient. Fionn hesitated before placing Maeve on the stretcher. Looking into her placid face, the feeling of helplessness propelled him back to his childhood when his mother had died. He kissed Maeve’s forehead and withdrew slowly, an inch at a time. Finally, only his fingertips touched hers, and then the connection was severed.

  “Don’t worry lad. I’ll fix her,” Neasa assured him before following close behind the stretcher, already headed to the infirmary. With the loss of Maeve in his arms, Fionn simply stood, unsure what to do or where to go.

  “Son, go clean up and meet me back here.” His father briefly clasped Fionn’s shoulder, then used the touch to push him toward the steps to his room. Obedience propelled his feet forward.

  Cleaned, shaved, and dressed in a loose button up shirt and jeans, Fionn sat at the table in the great hall finishing his dinner when his father appeared. Rordan Hughes was not a young man by any means but at six-foot-four, broad-shouldered and still muscle–bound, with eyes blue as ice, he commanded respect with a mere grunt. He paced before the blazing hearth, a wild look in his eyes like nothing Fionn had seen before. After his fourth pass, Rordan finally stopped and joined Fionn at his usual place at the head of the table.

  “Your aunt says the lass fares well,” he said, as if speech was a hard thing.

  Fionn shook his head in acknowledgement and restrained himself from sprinting to her side to see her for himself.

  “You did well son…real well.”

  His father had praised him? Fionn almost choked on his ale. He sat the tankard down so he didn’t spill it. He felt ridiculous drinking from the blasted things, but his father insisted his household make use of them.

  “Are ye all right, lad? Ye’ve been away too long. Can’t stomach a man’s drink,” Rordan goaded, eyeing Fionn over the lip of his own tankard while he took a long swig. “Well ye are back now and won’t be staying away so long again.” He slammed the cup down like a judge banging his gavel to declare a verdict. Laird Rordan Hughes wasn’t a man who spoke much, and never about his emotions, but as the warmth of connection that only being home could stir enveloped him, muscles he hadn’t realized were tense suddenly relaxed.

  Father and son sat at the table together in silence, each casting his eyes toward the stairs that led to the healing rooms. Just as the stillness became uncomfortable, the soft tap of footsteps on the stairs drew Fionn’s attention. He glanced up, met his father’s eyes. The laird heard t
he approach also, and they stood in unison. A girl, petite like her mother and with long golden hair, appeared, out of breath from hurrying.

  “Mother says you are to come now…both of you.”

  Fionn took advantage of his immortal speed and made it up the stairs before his father. Neasa stood outside the door of what could only be Maeve’s room and frowned at her nephew.

  “Where’s your father?” she asked Fionn, as she pushed a stray hair behind her ear.

  “Aye, I’m here. The lad took off before the lass had even finished speaking,” Rordan said from behind Fionn.

  “I must warn ye . . . she is well. Her body is repaired and will heal.” Neasa opened the door, but then stopped and touched Fionn’s shoulder as she had when she told him his mother had passed. For a moment he almost collapsed under the pressure of her dainty hand and all the painful memories it represented. “The lass refuses to wake up.”

  As the door opened wide, everything around Fionn seemed to vanish into a tunnel that led straight to Maeve. Red hair spilled around her head in waves and corkscrew curls, a stark contrast against the unhealthy pallor of her skin. As he approached, her complexion appeared to regain its usual luminosity. Lips pinked and formed a serene pout. Heat of the likes he had never experienced before rushed over him.

  “Just like her grandmother,” Rordan murmured. Fionn turned to look at his father out of the corner of his eye.

  “I heal the body. But what ails this lass is something beyond that.” His aunt pulled the white blanket up and folded it under Maeve’s chin.

  “Come lad. There is much you need to know.” Rordan laid a hand on his son’s shoulder and urged him to leave. Fionn knelt beside the bed, clasped Maeve’s hand in his, and brushed a kiss over her knuckles before rising to follow his father.

  Chapter Eleven

  Instead of going back to the great hall, Rordan led his son through the medieval keep’s halls and stairwell to the outer wall that once kept out primitive warriors, attacking clans, and the armies of enemy nations. Now, thanks to a powerful spell cast three generations before, the keep and its land was shrouded in a time cloak. All members of the clan had a special piece representing them, which always stayed in the castle as an anchor, allowing them to travel back. The linking items were held in a secret vault, hidden by not only magic but brick and mortar, and only a few knew its location. Fionn had been surprised to learn his father kept his linked item. A dagger with the family crest in the handle was the last gift his mother had favored him with before her death. Because of the obvious emotional link and the added bonding spell spoken by the current laird, the dagger allowed Fionn through the intricate spells that hid Hughes Place.

  As the two men looked out at the green acreage and the numerous people that moved about, Fionn remembered his father taking him on his first time ride. It had been to 15th Century Scotland. Fionn and his father both considered The Scottish Highlands their favorite place, no matter the time.

  Rordan began speaking in a low voice filled with emotion. “There are those who think that because I keep our clan shielded from the outside, I am a tyrant. That because I refuse to accept all the conveniences of modern times, I am a dictator. While I don’t feel the need to explain my choices to them, I will to my son, my heir.”

  Fionn straightened his back and opened his mouth to contradict his father. At one time, he might have been heir but, after his banishment, then acceptance of immortality, and now judgment as a fugitive, he didn’t feel he deserved it. Rordan raised his hand and narrowed his eyes at his son, a wordless order to remain silent. Once again, a childhood’s worth of life lessons kicked in. Fionn closed his mouth and listened.

  Rordan looked out over the land as he spoke. “Good lad. Now pay attention. Everything I do, I do for the good of the clan. Anyone who wants to leave is free to go. By choosing not to use electricity or technology, it ensures the values of hard work and pride of labor are not lost. We depend on each other, creating a unity in the clan. But most of all, magic and sorcery should be what we think of first, not technology.”

  It was as if a puzzle piece had fallen into place within Fionn’s brain. He finally understood what his father meant when he’d told him as a young boy “Simplicity ensures the clan’s survival and the legacy of our magic.”

  Turning to face his son, Rordan nodded and grunted. “Now, about Cordelia’s child.”

  Fionn prepared to correct his father’s notion, but then decided against it, for Cordelia had been the woman who raised Maeve.

  “Your mother was the woman chosen for me, and out of honor I did my duty to wed her.” Rordan withdrew the gold pocket watch he often spent hours looking into, yet never allowed anyone else near. He ran his thumb across the face, and then offered it to his son. “Unfortunately, my heart always belonged to another.”

  Fionn pushed the button at the top of the sphere and the watch back sprang open. Inside was a picture of Maeve’s grandmother and a fiery auburn curl.

  “Rick, Cordy and I were together from the breast. Cordy had a hard time keeping up with us physically, but the lass threw a knife better than any man I have ever known.”

  Fionn chuckled. “Aye, so does Maeve.”

  “Is that the lass’s name?” Rordan asked.

  “Aye.”

  “Always did like that name,” Rordan mumbled, looking out somewhere far away it seemed. “Cordy left to train in the art of healing for a couple seasons and came back Cordelia, a woman. The most beautiful woman Rick and I had ever seen.” A peculiar sadness seemed to emanate from Fionn’s father every time he mentioned Rick. “In the end she chose Rick, and because I was an arrogant fool, I lost them both. Now that they’re gone and I’m an old laird, I can see that everything was as it should have been.”

  Fionn handed the watch back to his father, still open. Rordan caressed the picture with a fingertip.

  “Long ago I cast an anchoring spell for Cordelia that would allow her to come to me with this watch and I vowed I would always keep it on me.” With his eyes still fixated on the pocket watch he paused and exhaled. “Six months ago, I was out riding down by the loch and she appeared like some kind of bewitching nymph.”

  Fionn smiled internally as his father paused yet again in thought. He knew exactly how Rordan felt. Looking up from his pondering, Fionn thought he detected a blush on his father’s cheeks, but then dismissed it.

  “Cordy told me all about the lass.”

  Fionn frowned, trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Six months? It had been at least three months later before his father summoned him.

  The laird continued to speak. “The Board of Witchery has always had its members who were no more than self-serving, pompous fools. Now it is different. People are disappearing, dying, old powerful people. Rick and Cordy withdrew from magical society under the masquerade that Maeve was normal, possessed no magic. It didn’t work, though. The Board wants her. The lass is strong and not only has the powers of the Sweeney’s and the da Paers but every drop of magical blood of every ancestor that has been in their line. Because she is the last, it’s as if the magic draws within her . . . comes together as a defense to ensure the clan lives on through her.”

  “But she’s not the last,” Fionn stated, taking the time to remember her shooter. While he wasn’t in a Confederate uniform, the man was a dead match for the soldier in the painting he saw at the Sweeney house. “She has a brother…a twin brother.” Then he explained all the events around Maeve’s birth ending with the gunshot that had felled her.

  Rordan grumbled a curse then ran his hands through his salt and pepper mane. Such hair Fionn would never know because of his immortality.

  Rordan seemed to stand taller, as though he’d made a decision. “What’s important now is to help the lass wake up.”

  “How do we do that?” he asked his father hoping he knew the answer.

  “Sleep,” he answered simply, then headed back inside.

  Fionn stared after his sire. Had th
e older man lost his good sense? Sleep in order to wake?

  ****

  At the next evening meal, Fionn tried to put on a joyful face for his clan. He was the prodigal son returned home and accepted. He was his father’s only living son. . A sister had married out to another clan, only to return with a herd of children in tow. His younger brother had died along with his mother in childbirth. Rordan had heard the biggest outcry for not embracing modern health care when that had happened.

  Nevertheless, even over the loss of his son and wife, he still said magic—healing magic—was far more advanced than anything medical technology could have done. At the time, Fionn had disagreed. The broken heart of a little boy had outweighed logic or reason. Now however, as a man who’d traveled from the past to the present, he finally understood. He’d tried to manipulate destiny as a tracker but learned that, when fate deemed it so, fate would always win. So had it been the fate of his mother and brother to go when they did, now he knew that. But not all people understood.

  “You sure know how to make an entrance, lad,” Fionn’s favorite uncle declared, slapping a rough hand on his back and then taking a hearty slurp from his tankard.

  Fionn picked up the scents of much stronger outside drink on his uncle’s breath and smiled into his own ale. Some things never changed. His uncle Cleavan was one of the reasons the clan was bursting at the seams with children.